Federal Reserve

Archive for Federal Reserve

Money for Nothing Trailer

Does anybody know about this? I am surprised by the strength of some of the statements from Fed officials in this trailer. Here’s the website for the documentary.

Two Sumner Posts That I Thoroughly Enjoyed

In this post, Scott hits something that I have been pointing out myself: So let’s review the past year: 1. Keynesians warned us that it would be a huge mistake to adopt fiscal austerity in America. It would cut growth sharply. Mark Sadowski has the details. 2. The “Laffer wing” of the Keynesian movement predicts […]

George Orwell on Politics and Language

From his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” some key passages that perhaps have relevance to our recent controversy over the quixotic Austrians attempting to resurrect (what they claim is) the original meaning of the term “inflation” (all bold is mine, and I’m not going to italicize the whole thing so you can see […]

Yet More (Unimpressive) Evidence of the “Prescient” Janet Yellen

This dispute over the next Fed chair is hilarious. (Thank goodness our system doesn’t place one person in charge of wheat production or computer output. It’s only that little aspect of our economy–the MONEY–that is in the hands of one group of well-connected technocrats.) I’ve already pointed out one guy who heaps praise on Janet […]

Questioning the Government’s GDP Numbers

Scott Sumner responded to my post on him vs. Schiff by saying he hoped I was joking. No, I’m not. I actually think it’s weird that so many right-wingers endorse Scott’s argument. (To remind you, Scott argues that if price inflation were a lot higher than the government’s numbers, that would mean the economy is […]

Is It Better to Malinvest During a Recession?

Evan Soltas (HT2 Scott Sumner) writes a more balanced view (compared to Matt Yglesias, who called Summers a communist) on Larry Summers allegedly problematic concern over low interest rates leading to malinvestments. To refresh your memory, here is what Summers said back in 2012, that is now causing a lot of people to flip out […]

Why Maiden Lane?

I am using this excellent J.P. Koning post (at Nick Rowe’s hangout) for an upcoming paper, but I wanted to draw everyone’s attention to this interesting fact: There is also a not-so-well known legal route by which the Fed has purchased assets in the past. The restrictions set by Section 14 [of the Federal Reserve […]

Just One of Many Fed Interventions

I’m doing research for a paper on Fed interventions during the financial crisis; there’s a great timeline provided by the St. Louis Fed here. I had not been aware of this entry for November 2008: The U.S. Treasury Department, Federal Reserve Board, and FDIC jointly announce an agreement with Citigroup to provide a package of […]